Freud Class Notes

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School

McGill University

Department

Political Science

Course

POLI 232

Professor

Catherine Lu

Semester

Fall

Description

October 15
FREUD: CIVILIZATION AND ITS DISCONTENTS
 Critical of Marxist view of emancipation-limits to happiness
 Application of clinical experience- empirical psychology
 Should we think of civilizations like people?
 Deep pessimism, disillusionment
 Present-day men don’t feel happy with their god-like powers
 One way of being happy- avoid pain and “un-pleasures”
 Seek intense pleasure or avoid pain- but Freud doesn’t think both are equal- only true
happiness is intense pleasure
 Intense pleasure that is episodic- meaning doesn’t last that long- we derive most
happiness from a contrast
 He’s talking about orgasms let’s be real here
 Close view to Hobbes- seeking power
 Pleasures of art, etc. isn’t enough of a substitute for intense pleasure
 3 sources of unhappiness:
 1. Body, if harmed, damaged etc.- doomed to decay- but you need it bc warning signals
 2. External world- nature
 3. Relations to other human beings
 We become more modest in seeking these pleasures as we grow up- it is not the
foreground
 Seek to lessen pain inflicted by others by drawing into solitude
 Intoxication= withdraw from pains of the world
 Universal tendencies but large differences between people and societies
 Everyone must discover for himself how he must achieve salvation
 Thinks God is just made up by humans
 God is substitute for satisfaction
 Thinks religion is a barrier to understanding ourselves
 If you can recognize your illusions, then they won’t control you and eventually make you
unhappy
 Each person should take an active part in their own cure
 Most people resistant to even acknowledging social source of suffering even esists
 Then are our social institutions wrong? No, this malaise will always be present
 Personifies civilization- the sum of regulations etc. that distinguish us from animals
 Protect against nature and relations with each other
 Replacement of individuals with society is most important step
 Justice- law made won’t be broken if in favor of an individual
 Sacrifice some liberty to have security- built on renunciation of instinct and non-
s